Congratulations to Laura Kelly and Christie Esparza (numbers 9 and 18), the two winners of this giveaway! Thank you to everyone for the advice you shared for parents learning Spanish with their children. There are lots of great suggestions. And as always, thanks for reading and participating on Spanish Playground!
We are giving away two copies of 52 Weeks of Family Spanish to Spanish Playground readers. To be eligible to win, leave a comment here and/or on the Facebook post about this article. Advice for parents who want to learn Spanish with their children would be great, but the comment can be anything related to language learning. Please be sure I can message you if you comment on Facebook!
The deadline to enter is midnight (central), Tuesday October 2. The winners will be chosen using random.org and announced on Wednesday, October 3.
Elieen McAree, author of 52 Weeks of Family Spanish, shares her experiences learning Spanish with her children in this guest post.
I had four young children when I decided to learn to speak Spanish. My rationale was that I would be a more marketable teacher when I returned to the workforce with a second language under my belt. So with my pencils sharpened and a fresh new textbook ready to be tackled, I began my Spanish classes. They started off with a bang. All that studying I did in high school and college? It seemed that it was still stored somewhere in my brain and came flowing out during the first few months of class. My Spanish class and the homework that came with it became an enjoyable hobby, not the chore it had been when I was in school. However, it didn’t take long till I hit a bump in my road to fluency. When I looked back on the four years I spent studying Spanish, I couldn’t recall ever speaking it. Studying? Sure. Listening? When necessary. But speaking? Nope. My tongue was learning to navigate foreign vowels and consonants for the first time.
That’s where my kids came in. Like all people learning a foreign language, I was embarrassed of my pronunciation of the Spanish language. To practice, I began taking children’s books written in Spanish out of the library and reading them aloud to my children. I found all my embarrassment melted away when I practiced with my kids. I started Speaking to them on a daily basis, first to practice my pronunciation and later to share the language with them. My goal was to incorporate Spanish into our lives a little at a time, to make my children’s absorption of the language meaningful and memorable. I wanted them to learn Spanish as a way to communicate, not just words on a page to memorize and conjugate.
Here’s what I learned:
- Kids love using a second language. They are eager and willing to try out new words and phrases. Without being told, they will apply vocabulary to different situations. This is when learning really occurs.
- Less is more. In a busy family, teaching your children a couple words or phrases a week is a big accomplishment. It all adds up over time and the children will retain what they have learned if they are given time to use it.
- Learning Spanish is a lot more fun nowadays. There is so much available on the Internet, it is easy to make learning fun and engaging. Music, videos and games are all available for free, as well as traditional flashcards, worksheets and other study aids.
- People are kind. Once you screw up your courage and try speaking to a native Spanish speaker you will see it’s not as bad as you think. You don’t sound foolish to them. You sound like you are learning!
I hope my book encourages other people to give learning a second language a try. I am still far from fluent, and my kids are still learning. However, we continue to learn and practice together and if someone asks us, “Do you speak Spanish?” we can honestly answer, “Yes, we do!”
You may also be interested in the Spanish Playground review of this book: Spanish for Children – 52 Weeks of Family Spanish
Aurora Bello
Sep 26, 2012
As a Spanish teacher, I’m always looking for fresh new ideas to incorporate to my classroom and to help parents practice Spanish at home with their kids. 52 weeks of Spanish would be a great resource to recommend to parents for extra practice!
Andrea
Sep 26, 2012
I have been working to teach my kids (ages 5, 4 and 1) Spanish for about a year now. I’ve found that the hardest part isn’t keeping them involved, it’s keeping me involved! It’s so easy to burn out and revert back to English. Something like 52 weeks of Spanish would really help keep me on track 😉
Christina Esparza
Sep 26, 2012
I have two small children, and I have been looking for resources to add more Spanish into our days. As a non-native Spanish speaker I find it really hard to be consistent, and as far as any lessons go, I don’t really know where to start. Although I want to add some learning activities/short lessons to our home school preschool, I haven’t found anything in my price range! The things that have helped us the most so far are listening to songs on CD (Jose-Luis Orozco, for example, helps them get used to speaking it) and playing games on the computer. I also just found an app for my android called InstaSpanish for the kids. It was worth the $3 I paid for it.
I would love to win a copy of 52 weeks of Family Spanish!
amy in peru
Sep 26, 2012
i’d love a chance to win. i’m always looking for resources for teaching spanish. thanks!
Ivannia Van Arman
Sep 26, 2012
Great article! I’m sure this ia a great resource! I completely agree with the article. Traditional Spanish classes, and teachers for that matter, did not focus on verbal communication enough. However, those that are newer to the profession (3 years in and loving it) understand that the faster a child starts speaking in the target language, then the more confidence he/she will develop. I like to mix things up with my K-8 students and play games, sing songs and even offer rewards for maximum speaking.
Gale
Sep 26, 2012
(NOTE:
Hi! I took some Spanish in high school and a year in college, but am far from fluent. This summer I got serious about trying to teach my kids. You know what the best tool was? Uno. No joke. I said the color every time I changed color. I said the number every time I layed down a card. I asked around on some Spanish/English forums and found some stuff here on phrases to use when playing games and used those. I didn’t make my kids do anything but soon they were repeating me all the same. They probably learned more with than then with any of the more formal lessons I tried.
I’ve also found a bunch of games online and for iphone that I use with them and they like that. Mind-snacks Spanish was one of the few I payed for, but it was worth it. Not good for younger children but my 9 year old has really taken to it, and it’s been helpful to me. As for Free apps, Ottercall is another good one my older kids like, and Lingu Pingu and Binlingual Child are ones my 4 year old likes.
ML Estrada
Sep 26, 2012
Woohoo! I am always looking for interesting and new ways to reach my students. This looks great!
Amy Saucer
Sep 26, 2012
I’d love to get some ideas for my personal family as well as for school. I am writing a curriculum for K-5th grade Spanish. Any tried and true resources are greatly appreciated!!
Laura Kelly
Sep 26, 2012
I love the thought of a parent using a second language with their children, even though they haven’t fully mastered it themselves. It really encourages children to understand that we can all be lifelong learners. I’m a teacher at a bilingual school in which the kids are learning Spanish, and I would love this resource!
Serena
Sep 26, 2012
I would love a copy! I am a K-8 Spanish teacher and this would be a great resource to share with families wanting to speak more Spanish at home! I also will be a mom at some point (sooner rather than later) and have always dreamed of raising my children to be bilingual! However, most people I come in contact with that attempt it usually give up, I am very intimidated! Hopefully this book could inspire me to try! Oh, and thank you for all of your fabulous posts…. my kiddos at school thank you as well! 😉
Kayla
Sep 27, 2012
I would love a copy of 52 weeks of Spanish Family. I would not like it only for me and my family, but also for the kids in my care. I am a home daycare provider and my husband and i speak spanish to our kids all the time. We really think its important that our kids are bilingual and know spanish fluently. Since being brought up my husband and i parents only spoke more english to us then spanish. So its really important that we speak what we know to them throughout the day. Being a home daycare provider a lot of the children that i watch come from Latino backgrounds and their parents always ask me if its possible to speak spanish to them. So im happy to always teach what i know to the children in my care and share with the parents that if they want their children to continue to learn spanish they have to be very consistant with the language, and that is something that i have learned. This book would be great to share with the parents of the children in my care.
Holly
Sep 27, 2012
I would love a resource for teaching my children more Spanish. I have three children who love to learn more Spanish and I want to keep up so they can learn as much as possible!
Kate Remillard
Sep 28, 2012
I am teaching my 5 y/o and 2 y/o Spanish. The Spanish Playground has been hands-down the very best find! This book looks like one more fantastic recommendation and we would enjoy giving it a try!
Katie Bushmaker
Oct 1, 2012
This book looks wonderful. I am an Elementary Spanish teacher and the best advice I have for parents teaching spanish to their children, is to teach concepts in context. Kids understand and make more connections with their learning when its not isolated.
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